The Dark: The Apocalypse
by Operative12
Summary: Dany remembers her life in the final hours of Westeros. All her achievements and accomplishments have been overshadowed by the encroaching shadow. Millennia later, the world once again finds itself shrouded in fear and conspiracy. Ancient forces are stirring in the dark. Is it too late to stop it? Part two of 'The Dark' series.
**Authors note: This story is an expansion of the narrative that began in 'The Dark: Scholars and Cities.' In some ways it is a prequel and in other a sequel. While the stories can be red in any order, they both deal with similar themes and some characters cross over, although this may not immediately be apparent.**

She paced the halls of her ancestors. Her feet moved across the worn stone floors as she moved around the Red Keep. The castle, once so busy and full of schemers, politicians and monarchs was now empty quiet and cold. The same could not be said for the city around it. King's landing was like a sore on the land, full of sickness, violence and death. Screams pierced the air almost constantly. When she paced the Keep she could drown them out and pretend that the distant noise was nothing but the bustle of the market or the sound of ships entering the harbour after years at sea. She could pretend that the world was not dying.

The unfairness of it all nearly crushed her. She had moved from one corner of the world, chasing prophecies and following dreams. Years in the desert and grasslands of the east had taught her much. She had travelled to Asshai, and gazed into the heart of the shadow. Raising armies and hiring mercenaries, she had attacked her home. Driving out the pretenders and imposters who had claimed her families thrown. Blood had been spilt in the castle as the Lannister Queen and king were cut down.

After the conflict, the Long night had come and the world had been shrouded in the dark. Traveling North she had stood atop the wall as fire seemed to engulf the world around her, burning the Wight's and driving back their cold and otherworldly masters. Naively she had thought it was the end. The terrors of the North had been bested, no one still stood in her way. She set about rebuilding her land after the years of war and bloodshed it had been forced to endure. The fields were farmed once more, towns rebuilt and the dead buried. She had overseen it all. She became a hero to the common folk. She played the part of a righteous queen very well. Trade was restored with the East and feuds laid to rest under her rule. Dragons once again flew in the sky. A symbol of a new world. A better world.

She even found love. But that didn't matter now. He was dead and she was alone with the memories of what could have been. What should have been. Those were her favourite years. She was happy. As she ghosted through the solemn halls she remembered better times, she would laugh at his poor jokes and strange ways, while he was always willing to offer support and kind words when she needed it. Her wedding was her brightest memory in the dark of her mind. Her platinum hair had tumbled down her back in exquisite braids, the firelight seemed to turn it into liquid silver. Her dress had been a thing out of a child's tale, bluer than the sky and more beautiful than the stars. He had worn what he always did, black. Her friends told her that they had never seen her smile as much as she did that day.

There was no war or rebellion, only companionship and the hope that tomorrow would always be better than today. The future seemed to be bright, an endless horizon of possibilities, yes there would be bumps in the road, problems along the way but with her friends, love and dragons by her side, it seemed like nothing could take that future away and for a few years nothing did. She spent her days planning for the future, building canals, roads and cities, improving the lives of all her subjects and she spent her nights with the ones she loved. Children and family no longer seemed like unattainable luxuries, the curse that had been put on her so long ago seemed to have faded until she only regarded it as something akin to a bad dream.

The screams seemed to grow louder, snapping her out of her pleasant day dream and back to the horrific reality of her world. She could think of a specific point where it had all started to unravel, fall apart and collapse. She knew that cracks in her dreams had first appeared when the witch had come. She knew of the witch, the strange tails that had come out of the Riverlands of a sorcerer who could slay men with her words or drive them insane with a conversation. But they were just tales, probably ones told in taverns and around fires by men who had too much to drink. She had hardly given the reports much thought, after all she had much more pressing concerns, rebuilding a nation was hard work. Then the witch had walked into Kings landing and demanded to have an audience with the Queen. The Queen was busy people said, but the witch would not accept no as an answer. She strolled through the gates of the Red Keep, which had mysteriously been opened for her. The guards at the gate claimed to not have seen a women matching her description yet nonetheless she had been able to enter the castle.

The hooded figure had marched into the throne room and stood before the Iron throne. She asked the person currently speaking with the Queen if they would leave, which they did. Without questioning or arguing with the strange hooded new comer, the man who had waited for weeks for his chance to speak with the Ruler of Westeros, quietly left the hall. The witch's footsteps echoed around the room as she paced forward, no one moved to stop her and the usually restless politicians and onlookers were decidedly silent.

Dany felt a strange crawling sensations down her back as the dark figure approached. Kneeling at the steps before the throne, the figure had thrown back her hood and spoke to the Targaryen ruler. The witch was beautiful, no one could have denied that her high cheekbones and slender figure cut a striking physique, but it was the contrast between her and the Queen that was most noticeable. Whereas her hair was platinum and silver, the Witches was onyx and darker than the blackest of nights, Dany's skin was tanned from years in the desert and harsh sun of the east while the witch's was paler than snow and her eyes the greenest of emeralds. She asked her to cast her attention to the south and the mysterious continent of Sorthorys. The witch claimed that something ancient was stirring in the jungle, something that had to be stopped. Something evil. Something that would tear down all that she had built. Dany wanted to laugh at her, to tell her to stop wasting her time by telling her ghost stories, but she couldn't, the sincerity in her voice was undeniable and after the long night, she knew better than to dismiss stories as myths.

She asked the witch why she should trust her, why she should believe a word of what she said, after all she had arrived unannounced in her court. The witch said nothing, she merely closed her eyes and opened her fist. Shadow fell in the hall as the blazing torches were extinguished all at once. Despite it being midday, no light streamed through the windows and the keep was shrouded in the blackest night. Several screamed and fled, but Dany could only sit on her throne and try to understand what was happening. A presence invaded her mind. It moved into her brain.

Images flashed in Dany's mind of dark pyramids surrounded by endless jungle and deep under those pyramids, lived an ancient and unnameable horror. Something so unspeakable that it would drive her mad if she gazed upon it. She closed her eyes and tried to blot out whatever lived in the dark, it almost seemed to sense her. Fear seized her heart. It moved towards her, its tendrils stretching out to touch her. The visions stopped and she was in the throne room once again.

"Is this enough proof for you? Do you still believe that I am telling myths?" spoke the witch's voice, inside her brain.

In that unnatural dark the witch had opened her eyes, they blazed like pinpricks of green fire. She had closed her fist and inhaled deeply and light had suddenly returned to the Throne room. Without saying anything more the witch had turned to leave when Dany, badly shaken, had asked who she was.

"A herald of the Apocalypse." She had replied without looking back.

That night Dany, did not sleep. She paced around her bedchamber contemplating the strange words and events of the day. Soldiers had been dispatched to look for the witch, but nothing had been discovered. She had vanished. She had talked with her advisors late into the night, they all agreed that what had happened was unnatural. They debated over whether to mount an expedition to the South, but could come to no clear consensus. Dany decided not to tell her council about the images she had seen, they were too troubling for her to describe and she feared that they could drive her mad if she thought too long on them. There was a dull persistent ache in her head, a side effect of the forced intrusion into her mind.

Her husband had not been in the Keep during the incident, but had immediately ridden back from his hunting trip when he had heard about what had happened. He was acutely aware of his wife's unease but knew not what to say to comfort her. It troubled him to see her so distracted and clearly disturbed. He tried to talk to her, to get her to tell him about what he had seen, but it was to no avail. Dany could not and would not talk about what she had seen.

The next day ravens were sent to houses, both great and insignificant across Westeros. They carried letters asking if anyone had seen or knew the where about of the Witch. Dany ranged across the country side on the back of her Dragon. She knew not what she was looking for, but thought that the ride would help her clear her mind. It did not. She returned, defeated and exhausted to the Red Keep. The questions of who the Witch was and what lurked in the South burned into her mind. She spent hours poring over ancient scrolls and desiccated texts, searching for some mention, some scrap of evidence about what she had seen. It was then that the nightmares began.

She would awake in a cold sweat, in the dead of night. She woke afraid and fearful, but despite this, Dany could never remember her dreams. She wasn't sure she wanted to. He began having them as well. He would gasp as he awoke. Fear in his eyes and a pounding heart. It was at this point where Dany began to worry. She had dragons, but how could they fight the subconscious, fire and claws would not drive back nightmares. Had she somehow spread this strange affliction to her husband? Was the same madness that had plagued her father now claiming her? She had no answers, neither did he. He wrote to his family in the North asking if they knew anything about the Witch and the sleepless nights that seemed to happen all too often. He hated seeing Dany this way. Her beautiful face, lined with worry. Her proud shoulders, tight with stress.

When the letters from his family returned, he realised that the problem was not limited to he and Dany. The letters spoke of a man who had butchered his whole family with a wood axe because he claimed a dream had told him they were demons. His sisters told him that they too had not been getting any rest for the past month or so as sleep only brought terrible feelings of emptiness, fear and despair. After hearing about a case where a women had thrown herself off a cliff because the 'one in her sleep' had told her she had wings, he decided that it might be best if he didn't remember the things in his dreams.

It did not take long for the first signs of the sickness to-

The man gasped in pain as the memories and thoughts of people who had been dead for over a million years began to settle in his mind. He knelt over a tumbled down wall that, despite the hundreds of thousands of years that had passed, still held a vaguely red tint. He had been clutching the shard of bone in his hand so tightly that he had managed to cut his palm. His blood soaked into the fossilised remains. He could feel his memories leeching into the bone as it seemed to eagerly lap up his blood. He could hear the ocean punishing the rocks below him. Spraying salt into the air as the sea and the cliffs carried out their ancient battle. He tilted his head to look up at the oppressive steel, grey sky, a single drop of blood trickling out of his nose as he did so. He watched the droplet fall onto the ancient, cracked stone. It was a side effect of the memory trance, his brain trying to make sense of what memories were his and which belonged to the Rulers of the long dead civilization. His hands shaking, he pulled a cigarette and lighter from his coat pocket. Fingers trembling, he sparked his lighter and watched the end of his stub flare. He took a long drag. Letting the smoke fill his lungs before breathing it out. The man had promised himself long ago that if he lived long enough to get cancer, it would be an accomplishment. The fedora he wore, cast a deep shadow over his face, doing a good job to hide the thin scar that ran over his left eye. He inhaled another lungful of smoke before stubbing the cigarette out in the damp grass. He turned the bone in his hand over and over. He would learn nothing more from it, especially now that it stored his own memories as well, and some of those were too painful to relive.

As he was returning to his car, which had been parked some way down the cliff, he pulled out his phone and dialled. The line was picked up immediately.

"What have you got for me?" Came the words from his phone.

"She was there, I don't know how or why, but she was there." An audible sigh came from the other end.

"You're sure it was her?"

"Trust meM,I know it was. You don't forget someone like that." The wind, began to pick up and tug at his coat as he said the words.

"I'll get the Americans on it as soon as I can. We need to find her." M's voice became quieter, "Rob, there's something else… I think the departments been infiltrated."

Confused, Rob asked, "Infiltrated by who?"

M's voice sounded disconcerted, "Not who, what. People are being too friendly, smiles are too wide, too much make-up and cosmetics. People are hiding something. Heavy jackets even though they're indoors. Excessive make up. They want us to see as little of their skin as possible."

"M, you need to get out of there." Rob was worried, if even the Department had been infiltrated, who knew how far the corruption went.

"I've got some things to take care of first. You've been watching the news right? Somethings happening, not just in the department, but around the county. Something the Government doesn't want to tell us. People are going missing. I have three agents who have failed to report in. They just vanished. No trace or trail, just gone."

"What do you need me to do?" Rob asked.

"I've identified another possible memory artefact location in the North, near the border, I've sent the details to you via email. If you get a moment, could you check it out? " M's discontent had vanished, and was now replaced by his usual, all business attitude.

"I'll see what I can do, just be careful M." Rob replied, sensing their conversation was coming to a close.

"I'll be careful."

M put the phone down. Rob got in his car and drove to the nearest town. He rented the cheapest motel room he could find. Despite being a 'contractor' for them, the department never covered any of his expenses. Well that wasn't entirely fair. The department didn't even know what he could do, because they didn't know he existed. To them he was just another one of M's many anonymous sources. Rob didn't know how many people supplied M with information, and he had been working for him for close on 4 years.

He lit another cigarette to calm his still nerves. He inhaled the smoke that was slowly killing him with gusto as if the nicotine could make him forget his troubles. Despite having done it dozens of times, the memory trance was still one of the most disturbing things he had ever experienced in his life. Seeing and hearing what other people saw, knowing their innermost thoughts, dreams and ambitions was often a difficult, and sometimes unbearable process. His brain stored the memories of dead professors, government officials and even murderers. Some days it was hard to tell which were his and which were those he had experienced second hand.

On days like that he tried to play a game, he would classify the first memory that popped into her head. Seeing a man burnt alive, that was his. Waking up alone in a blood spattered house that was his. His children's first day of school, not his. His wife's smile, also not his. Standing atop a wall of ice as undead creatures bared down on them, definitely not his. That one belonged to the Queen. He wondered what she was like.

It was a strange concept to him but having access to a person's memories didn't really give any insight as to what that person was really like. Over time Rob had begun to realise that the memories were how people saw themselves, and not how others viewed them. Even murderers and psychopaths were able to justify their actions to themselves. The Queen viewed herself not as a conqueror, but as a liberator, a champion of the weak and a bastion of justice. Rob found it hard to believe that she was all the things she said she was. She had crucified people and killed a young king who was barely out of his teens, simply because she wanted revenge.

His thoughts turned to the other women he had seen in the trance, the one they called the 'Witch'. He had met her before. She was the entire reason he had sought out the memories contained in the stones. He knew her. He sighed, not wanting to think about his own muddied past.

He stubbed out his cigarette and collapsed onto the bed, without even bothering to change his clothes. The bed was uncomfortable and the mattress hard, but he still slipped into sleep with no problem.

His dreams were dark and twisted. In it he saw piles upon piles of bodies' being stacked on boats in the harbour of Kings landing. The stackers wore crude masks of cloth around their nose and mouths, hoping that the deadly disease would not pick them as its next victim. A vase full of a dark green liquid was put on the boat. Carefully dipping a string in the liquid, the stackers lit the end of the fuse before hastily departing the boat. Dany watched from the Red keep as the vessel was pushed into the Black Water. A small green fire exploded onto the deck of the corpse laden ship, as it caught the ocean current. Soon the ship would be nothing more than a blazing pyre. A sight that Dany had become all too accustom to as the disease had spread.

Even the sky appeared to be diseased. It had a slight, but noticeable green tint, as if it was waiting to vomit sorrow onto the earth. They had been forced to start taking drastic measures: quarantine of the worst affected areas, burning corpses, conscripting all those who could work into the guard or civil services. It hadn't been enough, the cough spread faster than fire. Those who buried the sick would die maybe a week later. In that week they would pass it on to their family and friends, in a week or two they would in turn die. It had taken the disease three months to kill an estimated 50 000.

The numbers didn't matter to her, for the sickness had already carried her husband off to the grave. She had wept for what felt like days after he had heaved his last tortured breath. So stricken was she with grief, she did not even see the procession arrive to carry his body back to his home in the North. The dragon that had chosen him as its rider had also died. It had collapsed as his soul had left this world. If it had been any other time, Dany may have grieved forever, but the Kingdom needed her now more than they ever had before.

Food had stopped growing above the Neck and the North faced starvation. In Highgarden and Dorne, the dreams and visions were starting to drive people mad. More and more stories surfaced of sacrifice and murder, with the perpetrators claiming that dreams or demons had forced them to commit such heinous acts. The prisons ad barracks began to overflow with the accused. Many committed suicide in custody, as the gravity 0f their acts came back to haunt them.

Dany had ordered libraries searched u and down the continent, to see if there was any mention of a sickness which caused its victims to cough and cry blood. The bodies of the sick all had glistening red tears on their cheeks. All talk of an expedition to the South had ended when it became apparent that everyone was needed to try and keep order in the Kingdom. In the end it made no difference. The months wore on, the situation deteriorated further. Her Targaryen blood meant that she could not catch the disease, so she could only watch as one by one as her council and household were carried off into death by it.

Sickness fostered fear, and fear fostered resentment. Resentment of the Queen whose accursed ancestry had brought down such sorrow on the kingdom, or so the troublemakers said. As the death toll climbed, resentment turned to violence. Rioting, looting, rape, death. If it wasn't the dead being burnt, it was the market or an official's house. Dany could only watch as her dreams turned to ash. All the while, the sky grew darker. Had she not been able to fly above the clouds on her dragon, Dany swore she would've forgot what the sun looked like.

Four months before the world ended, Highgarden fell. A mob stormed the castle and butchered everyone inside. The Tyrells were hung from the walls. Signs that read: "Faithless", "Coward" and "Wretch" were nailed to their chests. Dany no longer had maids do her hair or lay out her clothes. She would go to what was left of the council, hear the latest death and damage tolls and spend the rest of the day wondering the halls or riding her dragon. She wore the same outfit for days at a time and didn't even try to make herself look presentable. She became almost like a spectre. Grief ruled her. Grief for those she had lost and those she had failed.

The Keep grew quiet as the end approached. Letters from the North had stopped coming. Revolt had turned into war in the Vale, as different faction's squabbled with each other, some tried to restore order while others spread anarchy. Across the Kingdom people began to realise, that the world was sick. No, not sick, poisoned. Poisoned by the one they saw in their dreams. Tall, thin and pale with eyes that could read your soul and a voice that could hypnotise you into doing and saying things you would regret for the rest of your life. Some said that in the final days of the world, the pale man walked among men. His black gaze could cause a person's body to shut down, or he could crush their brain.

Pentos was burned to the ground when a Red Priest had lost control as she tried to purge the sickness from the city with a fire ritual. Famine gave way to cannibalism as people had to find a way to satisfy their screaming stomachs. The bodies of the sick were no longer burned, they were boiled. The sky grew so black that it seemed that the sun set at midday. The Guard was given emergency powers. Looters and the sick could be detained or, if the situation called for it, executed on sight. Chaos reigned.

The Storm front that brought the apocalypse could be seen for a week before it hit Westeros. The clouds blew in from the South. The Clouds were black, not grey or white but solid black. As the storm of darkness crept closer and closer, the situation in the Kingdom reached breaking point. The mob had tried thrice to enter the Red keep, thrice rivers of blood had run in the street. Dany had been forced to use her dragons as crowd control, incinerating those who tried to scale the walls. Guards caught out in the street had been torn apart by the people. Dany's memories finally caught up to her present. She could see the oncoming storm and although she heard no thunder, she could she lightning flashes that lit up the world from her window. The mob could see the storm as well, it would be a matter of hours before it hit. They gathered outside the walls and flung rocks at the few remaining guards who stood atop them. Branches were piled at the doors, braches that would be set alight, in the hope that the fire would burn down the gate and give them a way into the stronghold. Dany paced the halls and waited for the end to come, because her best efforts, her accomplishments and her determination, had not been enough. She was broken inside, her soul was splintered. The horrors that ruled the world had finally broken her seemingly unconquerable spirit. It wouldn't be long n-

The dream shifted and warped, no longer was it the echo of the memory trance.

He stood in the alley strewn with rubbish as the grey light of dawn began to creep over the world. The flat-topped mountain loomed over the city. Despite the early hour, cars and hooting could be heard in the distance. He couldn't hear the ocean but he knew that the first surfers would be getting ready to wade out into the icy Atlantic water.

All he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears and the echoes of gunshots. Rob stood over the creature that had passed for human, but was anything but. The four holes in its chest leaked black blood. Instead of a tongue, it had meter long, oily black tentacle hanging out its mouth. Similar appendages sprouted from the creature back. They were topped with barbs. Its eyes were a sickly yellow or at least they would have been, if the creature's brains had not been splattered against the alley wall. Fear wracked his mind as he struggled to understand what had just happened. The meeting was supposed to be a deal like any other, the money was still in the back of his car. He had been walking with the man to inspect the produce when something fleshy had wrapped around his leg and pulled him to the ground. The tentacle had burst out of the man's mouth and had been about to impale Rob when he had freed his gun from inside his jacket and emptied two rounds into the … things head. But this had served only to annoy the creature, the four shots that had punched through its torso had served to at least render the abomination incapacitated. Rob had stood gasping and panting as he watched the dark blood seep out of the tentacle monstrosity, before running into the morning gloom.

The dream faded, only to be replaced by distorted voices and flashing symbols that seemed to sear Rob's brain. He woke with a start and a pounding headache, he swore loudly as the migraine pulsed under his temples. Rain pelted the roof and distant light flashed through the windows. He suppressed the memories the dream had brought to the surface. It felt like an artillery gun was being fired in his head he wandered blindly to the bathroom and popped three pain tablets into his mouth, soon he wouldn't be able to feel if he had been stabbed. The headaches were a constant source of dread, pain so intense it felt as if a war was being fought in his head. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his gun which lay on the dressing table, he briefly contemplated just ending it by putting a bullet through the roof of his mouth. Taking the 'easy' way out. It was the same gun he had used to fell the foul creature many years ago, the same gun that had been his fathers for nigh twenty years.

Knowing that sleep would now be hard to come by, he opted to switch on the small box television in his room and watch the news. The stories were the same ones that had been on the rounds for two weeks, another strange murder or kidnapping, another government official calling for unity (while all they hoped to achieve was a boost in voting number), another protest over the war in the Middle East and the treatment of refugees, and more meteorologists attributing the bad weather to the El Mino affect. In Rob's opinion it was all bullshit, but it was strangely comforting to know that despite all the things he had seen, the world went on, blissfully ignorant to the horror that had befallen those who had lived a million years before us. By the time his alarm went off three hours later, he had watched several reruns of 'EastEnders', spent time scrolling through his Facebook and made himself coffee and breakfast. The storm had calmed from a violent rain to a light, misty drizzled that would ensure that anything that hadn't already been soaked to its core was quickly remedied. The drive to the border would take at least four hours, maybe more if the traffic proved bad. As he was leaving the room, his phone buzzed.

 _Left you a package behind the motel, in the yellow bin. Don't trust anyone. Department is compromised. I'll do what I can but don't expect backup. The Americans have a lead on our women. They'll contact you ASAP._

The message came from an unknown number, but he immediately knew it was M. Loosening his gun from his holster, Rob quickly walked from his room, through the car park to the back of the motel. The yellow bin was overflowing with beer cans and plastic bags, but Rob found what he was looking for without too much trouble. A black sports bag that was partially hidden under a flattened piece of cardboard. The bag had the symbol of the department painted on it in bright red. Using his hat to shield his face from the drizzle, he ran back to his room and quickly bolted the door. He tossed the bag on his bed and unzipped it, revealing a gleaming black sub-machine gun and several magazines of ammunition. Under the gun, he found several wads of money and a Nokia phone which looked about twenty years old. He checked that the gun was in working order before putting it back in the bag. Rob thought that the situation must be pretty serious if M was giving him a military grade fire arm, even though M knew that he carried his revolver with him at all times.

He tossed the bag into the passenger seat of his car and input the address he had been given into his phones GPS. The radio presenters droned mindlessly on as Rob drove up the costal road. He flipped from station to station as he drove and while most were playing bad music, he found a station that was talking about several riots that had broken out in Germany over what the people were calling 'The cover-ups'. He listened, hoping to hear more, but the story quickly moved on. It wasn't long until he encountered traffic. He could see blue and red lights flashing in the distance and knew that there must have been an accident. Progress up the road was agonizingly slow. He was surprised to see a large boat moving through the mist a few miles from the road. Seeing a ship was not out of the ordinary but despite the mist he could see the sleek, angled steel that told him that this was a military vessel. Was it out on patrol? No it was too big. It was a ship that the army would only use for parades, or combat. He felt reassured by the weight of the revolver in his pocket. The ship ploughed through the waves until Rob could no longer see it.

But the ship was just a shape on the ocean, something that could be dismissed as a coincidence, or seeing things. Then a fireball lit up the sky. The accident site was now at the centre of a storm of heat. Horns were honked up and down the traffic line. Rob pulled the machine gun from the bag and loaded it, he didn't know why but he began to act on instinct, as he often did in crisis. There was something at the back of his mind, something he should remember. A helicopter was approaching the road from the sea, it was the Navy. It was not fitted for search, rescue or aid, machine guns could be seen, pointed out the side doors. Rob had no doubt that inside that helicopter, armed men were preparing their weapons, just as he had prepared his. The chopper flew over Rob's car and made its way to the site where the fires still burned. The helicopter hovered above the accident sight, ropes were flung out the doors and just as the first soldier, weapon at the ready, prepared to rappel down, a dark black stream shot from the smoke shroud. The dark shape tore through the helicopters metal under belly and punched out the cockpit. It immediately lost control and began to spiral to the ground, spraying dirt as it fell into the meadow on the right of the road. Another dark shape shot from the smoke, it wrapped around the first solid object it could find, a car. The black sedan was thrown into the air by the shape. The car was flipped up and up and just as it reached the pinnacle of its ark, the shape shot up, grabbed the car and threw it with a force like a meteor onto the road. It landed on the roof of another car and both vehicles were crushed. There was no doubt that all the occupants were killed. It appeared that some soldiers had survived the crash and began firing into the blackness, their sporadic bullets searching for the unseen assailants. One of the men had lost his leg in the crash. Rob could see his mouth open in a silent scream of agony.

Chaos had broken out on the highway as soon as the chopper crashed. Cars swerved into oncoming lanes and desperately searched for a way out of the warzone the stretch of road had become. There were at least three collisions .Unable to move his car, Rob could only watch the scene unfolding before him. Another shape, this one thinner and faster, slithered from the smoke and launched itself through the chest of one of the soldiers. Even from his car, Rob could see the spray of red as the man was impaled. The shape coiled around the dead man, wrapping the soldier in its embrace before retreating back into the smoke, with the body in tow. The remaining two soldiers turned and ran. However, they too were both killed in a similarly gruesome manner. There was another roar, but no more of the dark shapes shot from the smoke, the thick black cloud which had hung in the air soon dissipated. The injured man still screamed, but otherwise, the world had gone quiet.

Rob got out his car, weapon in hand, and moved to where the man lay. He had no medical training or supplies, but he would do what he could to help. It seemed that another driver had the same idea. The person was wearing a hoodie, and they knelt over the man, trying to apply pressure to the wound. By the time Rob reached him, the man had slipped into unconsciousness. The leg was mangled and the blood was pumping frantically out the wound. The person spoke.

"He's lost too much blood. You won't be able to save him."

Rob knew that voice. He scrambled back frantically from the person and bought the gun to his shoulder, clicking the safety off as he did so. His breathing was heavy as the person spoke again.

"Is that it? You're going to shoot me?" The figure asked calmly, as she stood. Her eyes, unseen stared directly at him.

"I fucking might." Rob said.

"Tell me, did he send you after me? You still taking orders from him?" her voice was not angry but annoyed. "He's a liar. You're a tool to him. He'll use you and discard you like a Styrofoam cup."

"The hell are you even doing here?" Rob demanded.

"I'm here to deliver a warning." She said. "The dark is hungry again, it writhes and stirs. It will wake if something is not done."

"It seems like your warnings only bring death." He remarked angrily, without lowering the gun. "I saw what your words did, they drove people insane. You brought the darkness and insanity on the world. You are the evil that needs to be cleansed. You are the Dark!" Rob was practically screaming by the end of his speech. He could sense that the words had wounded her. Good.

"You want the truth? Go to the Border, and find the artefacts he wants you to, check the memories within. Just don't blame me if you don't like what you find." She practically spat the words at him. Lightning flashed out at sea, and the figure vanished, leaving only a musty old scroll where she had once stood. He knew that the scroll had been left for him, and he considered leaving it their before deciding to take it with him. The gazes of gawking onlookers followed his steps as he returned to his car.

Rob would later learn that, the events of that day marked the beginning of the period known as the 'Crisis', when our world came under the influence of the powers that had destroyed the ancient civilization so many hundreds of thousands of years ago.

He couldn't help but think of M, as he drove. Where was he? More importantly who was he? What were his motives, his plans, his allegiances? He had only met him in person on a handful of occasions. Always under strange circumstances. A dingy bar in London. A deserted apartment in Cape Town. He hardly knew the man he worked for. Rob realised that he had become embroiled in something bigger than he could comprehend.

He brooded on this as he drove. The storm all around him.


End file.
